Inside the Hive

For the final episode of this very tough year, co-hosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan go through what they read, watched, listened to, and loved over the last 12 months.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

For years, Donald Trump's personal attorney had to live in Donald Trump's head. He knew his every move. He understood his every action and reaction. On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, he talks with co-host Emily Jane Fox about what he's sure Trump will do next, what investigations hang in the balance, and whether he thinks they'll ever speak again. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In 1977, Jimmy Carter entered the White House with as much public goodwill as any president in modern times (an 80% approval rating) on the promise of restoring decency through political restraint and shared sacrifice. Sound familiar? On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, Joe Hagan talks to historian Rick Perlstein about the latest edition to his spectacular three-volume history of the modern right wing, Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980, which documents the presidency of Carter and the emergence of Ronald Reagan in the wake of Watergate. When the bill came due for Carter's “ideological profligacy” of aiming to please everyone, Perlstein says, Carter crashed and Reagan rose to power on a strategy of “organized discontent,” building the reactionary coalitions that would haunt America for the next four decades. Perlstein’s history is a blueprint of the politics that brought us Trump—and a cautionary tale for President-elect Joe Biden. "We can’t change the past,” says Perlstein, "but we can live with our eyes open." Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Massachusetts AG joined this week’s episode of Inside the Hive to talk about taking on the Trump administration, handling election interference, and how to transition to the next chapter. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this week’s episode, we are lucky enough to share the conversation between President Obama and Jesmyn Ward, which is featured in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. They talk about his new memoir, the state of our country, and the process of writing truths about themselves. For this listen—and so many things—we have a lot to be grateful for.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jake Tapper, chief Washington correspondent for CNN, returns to “Inside the Hive” for an in-depth conversation on the state of the media in these bitter, waning days of the Trump era. While Trump and his legal team spin outlandish conspiracies to reverse the legitimate election of Joe Biden, Tapper separates fact from fiction, casts skepticism on a Trump “coup,” and considers the long-term damage Trump’s war on reality has done to American life. How much is the media—including CNN—culpable for his rise? Will his political influence stay alive or decline when he finally leaves office? And will the media, addicted to the ratings his chaos provides, continue to empower him with attention? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this week’s podcast, cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan game out the political future of the Trump machine in the aftermath of Joe Biden’s decisive electoral victory. While Trump drums up hysteria about a coup to fan the passions of his minions—prepping, no doubt, for a right-wing media company to challenge Fox News—the rest of the media faces a reckoning: Will we continue to breathe life into Trump’s reality show by indulging his 24/7 madness with cameras and microphones? Will Jared and Ivanka manage to sneak back into Upper East Side society or will they be pecked to death by angry socialites? As the nation teeters between the political chaos of Trumpism and a cooler, saner Bidenesque calm, we have a painful postmortem to conduct, but also, for the first time in a long time, hope.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The election came and went and we are here to talk it all through, break it all down, and feel our way through what may come next. Co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox go over what the polls and pundits missed, the cooling effect of a President Biden, and the impacts of the Trump derangement syndrome we're all suffering from.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan ask the question: If this reality-TV presidency was scripted, how might it end? Expanding on a special project published in the Hive this week—in which Susan Orlean, Tom Perrotta, Anthony Scaramucci, Alexandra Petri and others imagine a Trump-era “finale”—the hosts bring in special guest Lee Eisenberg, former head writer of The Office (and Hive-famous financée to Fox), to discuss how a writer’s room in Hollywood might build a bookend to the series—or, as the case may be, a cliffhanger to another season of Trumpian hell. In the spirit of both hope and realism, the hosts offer advice for surviving the next week and begin (carefully) imagining post-election possibilities for a nation desperate to wean itself from Trump’s show-and-awe dopamine hits.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, Hive special correspondent Gabe Sherman, who has covered Donald Trump since 2015, joins cohost Joe Hagan for an in-depth discussion of the final days of the 2020 election and - possibly - the Trump era. Sherman and Hagan look past the polls to discern the narrative logic of Trump’s reality-TV presidency: As he runs out of storylines and ideas, the President of “scandal, chaos and conflict" has been bested by his biggest political competitor of the 2020 campaign: the coronavirus. Desperate to distract the public from the reality of mass death and joblessness, Trump has failed to live up to his own entertainment credo: “He’s become boring,” says Sherman. Carefully peeking past November 3rd, the two Hive reporters consider what comes next for Trump, for the media, and, more importantly, for an exhausted nation — is it possible to return to political normalcy, even under Joe Biden?   Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices